Before embarking on a fishing excursion, fishermen often visit tackle shops to replace fishing tackle lost or damaged during previous fishing excursions. If the fisherman fails to replace lost or damage fishing tackle, it may affect the success of their next fishing outing because it may result in situations where a certain lure is needed due to certain environmental conditions but is unavailable due to not being replaced. For instance, from late spring and early fall, a dry fly may be a very effective fly for a fisherman to use while fly fishing in the northwest. However, after this season, a fisherman may have difficulty catching fish using a dry fly since flies are less likely to be an active pray from late fall to early spring. Instead, a fisherman may be better off using a streamer. If a fisherman does not have a streamer in his tackle box due to failure to replace lost or damaged streamers from previous fishing excursions, the fisherman will have to choose from a group of bad scenarios on what they should do. For instance, the fisherman may have to decide whether to stop fishing for the day, drive to a tackle shop to replace the missing tackle, or change their angling strategy by using on hand fishing tackle. The use of on hand fishing tackle could potentially ruin a fishing outing as it may seriously handicap a fisherman's ability to catch fish if it is not optimal considering the environmental conditions. If the fisherman decides to forgo the fishing outing all together or drive to a tackle shop to replace the lost or damaged fishing tackle, valuable time will have been wasted.
Because there are many different kinds of lures and other pieces of fishing tackle, it is often difficult for a fisherman to keep track of what tackle needs to be replaced. Additionally, fisherman often use multiple pieces of tackle in a single outing, making the task of keeping track of their tackle box inventory that much more difficult. If a fisherman is not entirely sure what is in their tackle box, they may purchase too much or too little of a particular piece of tackle in preparation for an upcoming fishing excursion. Purchasing too much tackle of a certain kind unnecessarily reduces a fisherman's funds that might otherwise have been used on something else. Purchasing too little tackle of a certain kind may cause the fisherman to run out of a particular piece of tackle sooner than expected, which may cause the fisherman to waste time due to redundant trips to the tackle shop. Additionally, failure to accurately track the inventory of a tackle box may result in the fisherman unintentionally not replacing a specific piece of tackle altogether, thus causing the fisherman to make an otherwise unnecessary trip to a tackle shop or forcing the fisherman to use suboptimal fishing tackle during a fishing excursion.
Additionally, fishermen may have multiple tackle boxes designated for a specific species of fish since the contents of a tackle box may change depending on the species of fish a fisherman desires to catch. For instance, a fisherman angling for largemouth bass will not necessarily use the same tackle as a fisherman angling for catfish. Nor will a fisherman angling for tuna necessarily use the same fishing tackle as a fisherman angling for rainbow trout. The contents of a tackle box may also change when the style of angling a fisherman desires to employ changes. For instance, a fisherman desiring to troll for sailfish will not necessarily use the same kind of fishing tackle as a fisherman desiring to pitch cast for bass. For instance, a fisherman desiring to surf fish for red fish will not necessarily use the same kind of fishing tackle as a fisherman desiring to fly fish for bone fish. Keeping track of multiple tackle boxes having fishing tackle for different purposes is tedious and may result in a fisherman forgetting to replace a specific piece of tackle while at the tackle shop or buying the wrong tackle all together. Having multiple tackle boxes for different purposes may also cause confusion, which may result in important pieces of tackle not being replaced prior to a specific kind of fishing excursion.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a system and method for tracking tackle in a tackle box so that a fisherman may more easily know what tackle is currently in their possession.